


In a Moment

by Moebius



Series: The Heart and Understanding [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Impossible Wolf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 17:56:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5426363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moebius/pseuds/Moebius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose meets her brother's English teacher, and decides she's someone worth getting to know better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In a Moment

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in the universe where Rose ended up after "Journey's End", so it sort of is an alternate universe but sort of isn't? It's a canonical alternate universe, anyway. Sure! Thanks to Miranda and Anika who read it for me before I was ready to post it.
> 
> The title is from a Jane Austen quote: "A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment."

The problem with being young is growing up. It’s the learning about life, and loss, and all the things Rose Tyler thought she knew oh so well before she even turned twenty-two, having survived apocalypses and ends of time and Daleks. But the human brain, someone once told her, maybe a gentle, ribbing reminder that she was young and human, doesn’t even finish growing until twenty-six.     
   
By twenty-six, Rose let her hair grow out to its natural dirty-blonde-almost-brown color. She left Torchwood. She held her brother’s hand on the first day of kindergarten, and decided maybe she should go back to school herself but never really got around to it and went traveling instead. There were restrictions on space travel, and even more on time travel, but there was plenty of the Earth she had yet to see.    
   
She left John in China a few years later, though he was probably in India by now, after a particularly long and pointless argument about how different the both of them were to each other’s expectations. He missed the stars, she missed the stars, but neither of them saw the universe the same way anymore.  They had grown up and grown apart in the process.  
   
“So as I was saying, Tony’s on track to conquer the galaxy any day now.” It was a joke that Rose only half heard, though words like conquer and galaxy were enough to draw her attention back to where it should have been.  
   
“Hm?” Rose had been looking past Tony’s English teacher, out the window and up, at the moon. Had she ever been to the moon? It was so close, but she couldn’t remember. That had been a long time ago.  Thirty wasn’t even that old but now, approaching it, she felt that everything had been a long time ago.  
   
“Is this a bad time for you, Ms Tyler? I wouldn’t mind meeting again tomorrow if it’s better, I know you’ve only just come back from traveling, and, well, I honestly expected your parents - ”  Rose’s eyes, which had been drifting back to the window, snapped back to Tony’s teacher.  
   
“I’m sorry, Mrs-” She thought she heard the Maths teacher at the next desk over cough.  
   
“Miss. Oswald.”  
   
Miss! Rose smiled. “Not even Ms?”  
   
“I suppose in the outside world, but all the students call me Miss, and it’s one of those battles not worth dying for.” Rose knew what that was like. She eyed _Miss_ Oswald with a new appreciation. She was about Rose’s age, maybe a year or two older, with short brown hair and big brown eyes. She smiled back at Rose. “You can call me Clara.”  
   
Rose bit her lip briefly. “Well, Clara, I’m Rose, and yeah I’m sorry for zoning out. And for assuming you were married.”  
   
“That's okay, I'll take it as a compliment.”  
   
“Which?”  
   
Clara laughed. “So, we have another round of parent-teacher meetings tomorrow, if you’d rather? Or if your parents would rather?”  
   
“Nah,” Rose shook her head, “my parents are… it’s a long story.” Involving Torchwood and some conspiracy maybe about robots and her mum wanting to instill a _sense of_ _responsibility_ as if she hadn’t had any until now and give Rose a _proper set of roots_ as if she hadn’t been born in another universe.  As if both of them hadn’t. Rose didn’t need home to be a place, her home had always been a person. People.  No, she realized sadly, a person. “We can finish tonight. And then tomorrow, maybe you’d like to get dinner? After you’re done, of course.”  
  
Now she definitely heard the Maths teacher cough. Clara looked at her, surprised, before smiling a small, amused smile. “You know, you’re not the first parent to ask me out, though most of them wait until the end of the conference.”

“I’m not a parent, but it’s good to know I have competition.”

“Oh, you definitely don’t have any competition, Rose.”

A flutter settled in Rose’s stomach. “I can wait ‘til we’re done here, then ask again.”

Clara shook her head. “I’d love to have dinner with you, but if we don’t finish up, I’ll never be free to.”

“Sneaky.”

“I know, aren’t I?” Eyes sparkling, Clara slid a piece of paper towards Rose: her phone number. “So back to business?”

Rose looked down at the note, taking a moment to appreciate Clara’s small, precise writing – what she’d expect from an English teacher – before she slid the paper into her pocket. “Right. Back to business.”

\-- 

She had wanted to take Clara to her favorite chip shop, but she realized that a chip shop wasn’t the best first date for two adults, unless maybe they had previously agreed that chip shops were the best first date. Plus her favorite chip shop had closed while she’d been away. So she asked Jake, who was the only person even remotely around her age she knew in the area, and Jake had suggested a nice but not too posh restaurant near enough the school to be convenient but far enough to avoid parents. Jake put a lot more thought into it than Rose had, if she were being honest, and she decided to ask him for advice more often.

And then Jake had told Jackie. Well, not _told_ exactly, more like hadn’t shut up about it when Jackie came into the room.

 “You have a date with a _woman_ who is Tony’s _teacher_?”

 “Yes, I do. Which one is worse for you, exactly?”

Jackie waved her hand in the air. “Oh Rose, I don’t care if you’re a lesbian.” That was when Jake decided to make some hasty goodbyes.

Rose rolled her eyes. “Oh my god, Mum, I’m not a lesbian, I just have a date with a woman.”

“Alright, alright!” Jackie sat down next to her on the couch and patted her thigh. “You’re too old for it to be a phase, right? So there we are. You’re not a lesbian, dating a woman.”

Unfortunately there was no longer a way to rip open a whole in reality and escape to another universe, so Rose was stuck having this conversation with her mother. “Can I go now?”

“So, Miss Oswald, right? She seemed nice when I met her at the start of the year.”

“Mum.”

“Bit small, that’s a change for you. Besides the,” Jackie waved her hand over her lower midsection. “Parts.”

“ _Mum!_ ”

“What, Rose, you always liked tall blokes! Except for Mickey, but I never did-”

“Alright, I’m going. Goodbye.” And Rose was up and out, because she had better places to be. Like literally anywhere.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

Rose chose not to think too much about what that meant.

\--

The nice but not too posh restaurant was very nice, and Rose had arrived early because she was nervous and didn’t really know what else to do. She hadn’t really dated since Mickey, not in a real official way, unless you counted bringing Adam to Satellite Five, which she most assuredly did _not_ count. She and John had just… been together. And before that was… before that. 

Halfway through the breadsticks, Clara showed up, two minutes late, looking a bit flustered. She sat down with a thump, gulping down her glass of water before shaking her head. “Never be a teacher, Rose.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Rose replied, smiling, not even able to be annoyed that the water got a proper hello before she did. “Which is it, kids or parents?”

“Other teachers!”

Ah. “Let me guess. Maths.”

“How’d you…”

“He seemed to come down with bronchitis last night while you and I were talking.” Rose offered her water to Clara, who shook her head, but then messily poured half of it into her glass anyway.

“Thanks. Yeah, Danny’s lovely. He and I dated for a bit, and I thought- ” Clara winced. “Oh my god, I’m talking about my ex on the first date.”

Rose, who had a very complicated relationship with exes, found that she didn’t actually mind very much. “It’s okay. I figured it was something like that, and well. I’m the one who asked.” 

“Fair, so it’s all your fault and I can in no way be found responsible for ruining our date.”

“I haven’t been on a lot of dates, but I wouldn’t say it’s ruined quite yet, yeah?”

Clara nodded. “No, you’re right. Start over?”

Rose bit her lip. “’Course. Stand up.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“Go on, starting over. Like I said, I haven’t been on a lot of dates, but I think I know the proper way to start one.” Intrigued, Clara stood. Rose walked around the table and pushed the chair gently against the back of Clara’s legs, signaling her to sit. “You look lovely.”

“Thank you,” Clara blushed and smoothed her skirt, decorated with tiny flowers. “So do you.”

Returning to her seat, Rose shook her head. She’d picked out the nicest thing she’d bothered to buy when she got back to London that wasn’t a business suit, and wondered when she got so many business suits. Grey trousers, an off-white blouse, and black heels. She had felt grown up but now, all of the sudden, silly. “D’you know, I haven’t worn a skirt in so long that I don’t even have any here?” 

“You don’t strike me as a woman who needs a skirt to look good…” Clara winced again. “Sorry, that made more sense in my head. I mean you really do look great. I swear I’m not bad at this.”

“Don’t worry, we can be bad it together.” Rose smiled.

“So you’re saying I’m bad at it then.”

With a laugh, Rose lifted her water glass. “The best bad date I’ve had, and we’re only two minutes in.”

“In that case, I can’t wait to see where the night brings us.”

\-- 

The night brought them, eventually, to Clara’s flat. They had spent hours talking, Rose telling Clara of her travels – the ones on Earth, anyway – and Clara telling Rose about her students. Rose envied Clara’s passion, Clara envied the places Rose had been and seen. Before they knew it, the restaurant was closing and they were asked to leave. They ducked into a quiet pub and found a quiet booth until they were asked to leave there, too.

Clara stopped in front of her door and took a breath, spinning on her heel. “Can I ask you something, Rose?”

Rose tilted her head and looked down at Clara. “Sure, yeah. Okay.”

“You’re not in Torchwood.”

“No, not… it’s complicated, but no not really.”

“I was just wondering, I’ve heard… on the internet?” She scrunched her nose, as though she was embarrassed that that was her source. “Well, anyway, that they have space travel.”

The flutter that had been in Rose’s stomach all night – since last night, in fact – spread from her stomach to her chest. “I wouldn’t know. Why?”

Clara leaned back against the door to her building and looked up at the sky. “Why not? It’s so _big_ out there, Rose. Wouldn’t you want to go if you could?”

Tonight, Rose couldn’t bring herself to look up, and instead stared at Clara’s face. “Yes,” she whispered. And breathlessly added: “Clara.”

“Mmm? I –“ But whatever Clara had been about to say was lost in the moment as she met Rose’s eyes. She formed a silent “oh” with her mouth, before reaching out and grabbing Rose by the blouse, pulling her in close, until there was only the space of a breath between them. 

But it was Rose who kissed Clara, and for the first time in a long time she wasn’t thinking about the past or the future or universes right next door and out of reach. When they broke apart, both flushed, Rose brushed a strand of hair from Clara’s forehead. “Can I…”

“Come in, yeah.” Clara reached for her keys. “I’d like that.”

\--

It was still dark when Rose woke up, momentarily disoriented by the unfamiliar surroundings. She tried to look for her phone without disturbing the small woman draped halfway across her body. It didn’t work.

“Are you leaving?”

“What?” Rose looked down to see Clara gazing at her sleepily. “Were you not asleep?”

“Sometimes I’m a light sleeper. If you’re leaving, that’s okay I only-”

 “I’m not leaving.”

Clara smiled. “Good, because it wasn’t really okay.”

Rose tried to bite back a smile, but that didn’t work either. “I’m not good at dating, but I wouldn’t run out on you.”

“I know your home address, so it wouldn’t really have worked anyway.” As she spoke, Clara rolled off of Rose and reached for her own phone. “Half past three.” 

“How’d you know I wanted to know what time it was?”

Clara shrugged, her shoulder bones pushing upwards. It made Rose want to reach out and touch her bare skin. So she did. Clara turned back and smiled over her shoulder. “It’s what I’d ask if I woke up in someone’s bed.” She put her phone down and crawled back in to bed, fitting herself against Rose’s body. “Why did you ask me out?”

“I don’t know.” Rose wrapped an arm around Clara, fingers playing lightly over the smooth skin of her shoulder. 

“Really? You’ve never asked a woman out,” it was something they had discussed over dinner, “but you thought you’d ask me?”

“Is that odd?”

“I don’t know.”

Rose was quiet for a moment. She thought back to the night before, the small desk, the uncomfortable plastic chair, and the stars she’d been staring at when Clara had broke her from her reverie. “I’ve been there. To space, to the stars.” When Clara said nothing, she continued. “And I don’t think I can ever go back. But when we talked last night, it hurt less. And tonight… it didn’t hurt at all. If you had all of time and space ripped away from you, wouldn’t you ask someone out if she were the only thing to make the emptiness a little better?”

Now it was Clara’s turn to be quiet. She felt Rose’s heartbeat pounding against her chest, and she pressed a small kiss to Rose’s collar bone. “That’s pretty serious.” 

“Yeah,” Rose frowned. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“That’s what you said about me leaving.”

“Right, fair point.” Clara propped herself up on her elbow. “The sex was great. The conversation was great. I think I’d like to have another date with you, and while it’s a bit intimidating to be something impossible to someone, especially someone you’ve only just met, I think I can handle it.”

“What do you mean, impossible?”

“I’ve known you twenty four hours and you already think I’m going to save you.”

 Rose thought about it. “I suppose you’re going to tell me I should save myself?”

 “Sure, why not.”

“What if,” she closed her eyes, “I say that you’re the first woman I found cute enough to ask?”

Clara chuckled. “Well, I’d believe it. I’m quite a catch.” When Rose smiled, but didn’t laugh, Clara leaned back in and draped herself over Rose’s body, pulling the duvet back over them both. “Go on. Tell me about time and space.”

Now Rose opened her eyes. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright, well, I was working in a shop…”


End file.
